Mech Zero: The Dominant

Death awaits the curious! Out along the rim of the galaxy hangs a loose configuration of some 60 stars known as the Faustian Chain. This whorl of sparkling suns is rich in planets and occupies an irregular volume of space some 20 light years in diameter. From an external viewpoint, the Chain presents a colorful display of plasma-streams, luminous nebulae and sparkling pinpoints of light.

Nice Pre to the Mech saga

Nice short starter story, with cool Sci-fi. It should have been longer, but we'll see how Mech 1-4 is.B V Larson writes good books so far.

Mech 1: The Parent

After centuries in stasis, a lost task force returns home. Arriving from the infinite void the surviving ships discover that the Imperium lies in ruin. The Homeworld itself is destroyed, and nothing lives in the Ancestral System except an infestation of unknown bipedal beings - creatures soft, red of blood and warm of flesh.... When you colonize a planet, make sure the owners aren't coming back.... MECH is the story of a new Earth colony built upon the ancient Homeworld of a civilization presumed (incorrectly) to be long dead.

This book needs a prologue

I had read most of B V Larson’s StarForce series and, thinking that the series was not bad, decided to try this book. The premise, as explained in the..Show More » Audible description, was that a long lost race returned to find humans had taken hold of their home world. I had assumed that there would be some kind of reasonable “first contact” between rational beings and that it might be worth reading how this was resolved. But the book disappointed me in many ways. There are no “spoilers” in this review, but I have listed what about this book made me feel disappointed.

First, the description is incorrect. The “home world” itself was physically destroyed and did not, as I assumed, only contain some kind of ruins. The humans did not inhabit the “home world” but an adjacent world. That is clear in the first 10 minutes of the book. The description was almost certainly provided by the publisher and so this is not Audible's fault.

Second, there is no “back story” to explain about the religious group and the story, as it unfolds, was almost unintelligible to me. I could not understand who they were, why they were acting as they were and why anyone would choose to make the decisions the reader eventually finds they have made. I could not help comparing those people with the characters in Heinlein’s "The Puppet Masters" since they were essentially in the same situation.

Third the characters seem to be more caricature than character. The villains have no saving graces at all and are either cowards, thieves, closet pedophiles, sadists or some combination thereof. The heroes and heroines seem to have no failings at all and, in the end, only one character seemed real to me at all.

Last, but not least, I found the reading to be less than stellar and, at least at the beginning, difficult to follow. Eventually I became familiar enough with the narration that it stopped bothering me but I always felt that it was a distraction from the book rather than being either neutral or a positive addition.

Mr. Larson’s web site says of this book that people either love it or hate it and I can believe that. Although I fall closer to the latter than the former I can see how people might find all of the weirdness appealing in books that often seen to be clones of one another. This book is definitely weird but the one positive thing I can say about it is that it is not a clone of anything else I have ever read. It would have been improved (for me) if there had been a prologue explaining who the various groups were and something about the “riders”, but perhaps I am not typical.

All in all I do not feel that I can recommend this book but I do feel that some people will positively enjoy it. I will not read any more of this series but I will continue to read B V Larson in the hope that the next book will be more to my liking.

Mech 2: The Savant

The Skaintz Imperium was eradicated from the backwater planet of Garm, but at great cost. The population of the world was decimated within weeks, and Garm will never be the same. At least humanity can breathe easily knowing that the mysterious aliens are all dead.... But are they? Using their natural form of communication, Skaintz radio signals did chirrup and click, however briefly. Transmissions in their ancient language now spread at the speed of light in a growing sphere.

Such a cool story. A great way to start book 2.

BV doesn't wait to get you into the action like he did in the first book in the series. I really felt like this one started moving and then never sto..Show More »pped. Great continuation of the series. I have to say, so far, i have not been disappointed with one book BV has written.

Mech 3: The Empress

Ignis Glace is a war-torn world of fire and ice. Tidally-locked to its tiny red sun, one side of the planet bakes while the other side is forever frozen. Known as Sunside and Nightside, these two wastelands are bordered by a narrow inhabitable region known as Twilight. Humans and mechs battle for control of their world, even while a third player approaches the game: the Skaintz Imperium. Once the aliens strike, no world is ever the same.